Václav Klaus: the last European

I learned something new from a Daily Telegraph editorial the other day. Apparently, the title which George Orwell had originally wanted for Nineteen-Eighty-Four, his dystopian classic, was The Last European. These days, the leader-writer observed, the last European is Václav Klaus, the brave, prickly, stubborn president of the Czech Republic. He alone stands for European values – the rule of law, personal freedom, representative government – against a system that depreciates liberty and despises democracy. He alone has yet to sign the Lisbon Treaty.

Long-standing readers of this blog will be familiar with Hannan's First Law of Politics: no party is ever Euro-sceptic while in office. But President Klaus is not a party. Indeed, he left the party he had founded because he felt it was insufficiently robust in its Euro-scepticism. Will he be the first ever leader to take on the system and win? Will he do what Winston Smith couldn't?

The odds are stacked against him. The other 26 governments, knowing that Lisbon is unpopular with their own electorates, are desperate to bring the whole wretched argument to a close. Eurocrats are desperate for a treaty that will bestow on the EU the final and definitive attributes of statehood: a foreign policy, a criminal jsutice system, a head of state, legal personality and, for good measure, a self-amending mechanism, the so-called "passerelle" or "gangway" clause, which allows the EU to annex fresh competences without needing the approval of the national parliaments. And, of course, Czech Euro-enthusiasts – diplomats, big corporations, civil servants and, not least, MPs – are lining up with Brussels against their own head of state.

On the other hand, President Klaus remains far more popular than his ministers. Although Czechs are not especially interested in the details of the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty, 65 per cent of them back their president. Czechs are a proud people, and they resent being pushed around. Can you blame them? It was recently reported that the German Ambassador to Prague had called in the President of the Czech Supreme Court and told him to bring to a swift conclusion the legal challenge against Lisbon. Meanwhile, a senior German MEP called Jo Leinen has called for Mr Klaus to be impeached if he doesn't sign.

What? What? Forget Mr Leinen's bullying tone, and focus on his attitude to democracy. He wants to remove the duly appointed head of a neighbouring democracy, not for corruption or malfeasance or abuse of office, but for sticking to the position that he had very publicly assumed prior to taking up the presidency. Far from neglecting his duties, Mr Klaus is taking seriously his role as the ultimate guardian of Czech national interests.

If you have any doubt about the inherently anti-democratic tendencies of the Brussels apparat, listen to the way Eurocrats complain, without a trace of self-awareness, that Mr Klaus is "defying the democratic will of Europe". Oh he is, is he? Then why don't we test that will by giving 500 million unconsulted Europeans their referendums, too? The truth is that President Klaus is the only European leader who speaks for the majority – the majority who never wanted the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty and were never asked for their opinion.

Can he do it? Can he uphold the interest of the peoples of Europe, in defiance of their own elites? I don't know. Hannan's First Law has so far proved inflexible. But if even Václav Klaus, that least political of politicians, a man who had the bloody-mindedness to become a Hayekian economist while living in Communist Czechoslovakia, is broken by the Euro-system, then truly there is no hope. To return to The Last European: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever".

Meanwhile, if you don't support the Lisbon Treaty, say so. Please take a few seconds to sign the petitions here and here.